Bitspark Glides Through Innotribe’s Semi-Finals

The Innotribe semi-finals took place at the Red Dot Design Museum, in downtown Singapore.  The Innotribe Startup Challenge was launched in 2011 by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Since its foundation in 1973, SWIFT continues to push for innovation within the financial market.

Innotribe’s purpose is to deliver thought-provoking content, and challenge perceptions in the financial market. This could be an ideal platform for Bitcoin Startups to showcase the importance of blockchain technology.

“Innotribe provides [startups] early insights on innovations that could disrupt current business models and create new opportunities. Through the Startup Challenge, it also introduces them to today’s brightest startups.”
— – Innotribe

Innotribe Showcase Challenges have so far taken place in Cape Town, Singapore and London, with an upcoming event in New York.

Five semi-finalists are selected from each showcase for the Grand Finals. Two Growth Stage startups can be of any level of maturity, revenue or funding, but must propose

products or services that fly ‘under the radar’.

From the Singapore showcase, the two growth stage finalists are:

• Codapay; an online payment gateway focusing on the 97% of adults in South East Asia who are without credit cards.
  
• goSwiff; who intend to assist communication with banks and merchants accepting card payments via mobile.

Early-stage startup finalists, selected during each showcase, must be under 3 years old and have less than $1Million in revenue and Investment from the previous 12 months. The three finalists for this category in Singapore are:

• Trusting Social; who apply big data and deep learning tech to consumer credit.
• Jewel Paymentech; who use predictive analytics to provide automated risk management for banks and payment facilitators, in order to manage e-commerce merchant risk.
• Bitspark; the crypto-financial services provider for the Asia Pacific region. They are pioneering the world’s first blockchain powered end to end Remittance service, in addition to a blockchain auditable feature rich trading exchange.

Bitspark entered the Bitcoin Industry as a cryptocurrency exchange. However, due to popularity and support from key remittance corridors in the Asia Pacific region, a shift in focus was required.

“We have decided to temporarily retire the exchange and shift focus on building our remittance service as it is the best direction for Bitspark at this stage.”
— – George Harrap, CEO at Bitspark

The Bitspark platform will use blockchain technology in the background. Therefore users will not need prior knowledge of digital currencies to utilize their services.

“Bitspark handles all the tech making it easier for wide adoption while simultaneously making cheaper, faster and borderless money transfers easily accessible to developed and emerging markets.”
— – Bitspark

Rising frustrations in the remittance space provides ample ground for improvements in service, cost and transparency. Bitspark Remit is the underlying software that any business can use to send and receive money within the Bitspark network.

“Every Bitspark remit user is free to charge whatever fee they want, retaining 100% of any commission you charge. Make money sending and receiving transactions and grow your marketing presence with social media integration and referral rewards.”
— – Bitspark

Bitspark demoed their platform at the Innotribe showcase for the first time. According to the Bitspark blog, “the platform received great reception with particular excitement over the ease of use, technology integration and its potential in emerging markets.” This response has seen Bitspark move forward into the Grand Finals.

The Innotribe Grand Finals will take place October this year at the annual Sibos conference in Singapore. The event is arranged and facilitated by SWIFT and initially began in 1978, as an international banking operations seminar in Brussels. Now it is viewed as a premier business forum to encourage debates and collaboration in the global financial community.

“The challenge provides participants with the unique opportunity to get together and create smart pitches, facilitate insightful discussions on emerging innovations, and participate in useful networking with potential investors, customers, and partners.”
— – Sibos

Fabian Vandenreydt, Head of Markets Management for Innotribe and the SWIFT Institute, is eager to see what the 2015 applicants have to offer. "Every year the bar gets higher with many impressive applications from startups coming from across the globe. It is great to see this community using Innotribe as a platform of choice, and allows us to provide them with even greater opportunities to connect with the financial industry.”